Viewpoints

To the Editor:

On or about October 15, my husband and I were leaving an eating establishment in downtown Waukon. Our vehicle was parked on the south side of Main Street, and it was about 7:15 in the evening.

As we started pulling from our parking space, I looked in my side mirror, and coming down the street from the Post Office direction was a kid on a skateboard, coming full tilt in the roadway.

It was just getting dark and the skateboarder was wearing dark clothing so hard to see. If I wouldn’t have looked in my side mirror, he would have hit us, which would have been bad at the speed he was going.

He continued down the road and turned and went down Spring Avenue. I’m sure he probably was thinking the new streets are perfect for the ride.

This isn’t the first instance I have observed this sort of occurrence since the new surface has been put on the streets. Kids on bikes doing the same thing this kid was doing on his skateboard.

To the Editor:

If you have a hard time believing that climate change, or global warming, or climate chaos, is real, you are not alone and there is good reason for that. Since the 1970s, the oil and gas industries have deliberately misled the American public about the reality of climate change and its cause.

We have all been denied the right to be correctly informed about the risks of carbon use. The tactics the industry has used for decades, such as fake experts and conspiracy theories, came directly from the tobacco industry’s playbook. The actions of the fossil fuel industry have kept the public in the dark about the truth and lowered the support for climate action.

To the Editor:

The Allamakee County Food Shelf is a non-profit 501[c]3 organization. We are located at the west edge of Waukon for our community residents. Volunteers man the food shelf to stock shelves and help clients select food items.

Anyone who needs help, and everyone needs help sometime, can get help from us. We are open Thursdays 9 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Volunteer opportunities are always available. We have a wealth of community support both in donations and volunteers. We appreciate this year’s garden produce and all that you do.

Julie Rotach and Ann Roed  Co-coordinators
 

To the Editor:

I would like to bring your attention to one of the public measures coming up on the November 5, 2019 election ballot.

This item is a proposed tax of 7% to overnight visitors who pay for lodging outside of the city limits but within Allamakee County. If this public measures passes, it will be effective July 1, 2020.

Just so you know, an overnight visitor who pays for lodging within the city limits of Waukon or Lansing currently pays a 7% hotel/motel sales tax. As of right now, if this overnight visitor paid for lodging outside of the Waukon or Lansing city limits, he/she would not pay a hotel/motel sales tax.

A locally imposed hotel/motel tax ranges from 1% to 7%. The majority are collecting the maximum of 7%. A hotel/motel excise tax of 5% is currently collected and paid to the State whether the property is within the city limits or outside of the city limits.

To the Editor:

I’ve been hearing reports from around town that people have been receiving calls from someone claiming to be Google, offering to verify their Google Business listings for a hefty fee. So, I thought I’d clear this up.

First off, claiming and managing Google My Business listings is completely free. Google crowdsources much of its data, and it wants to have the most up-to-date and current information around. They are never going to charge you for a listing, because you are the one providing a service to them.

Full honesty, I hadn’t gotten around to verifying our Main Street Lansing listing, but I just did that before crafting this text. It took less than a minute. The process for me was this:

To the Editor:

The gap between rural and urban Iowa continues to widen as population, earnings and net farm income are declining in several rural areas. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of federal tax law changes now threatens to impose an additional financial burden on rural communities.

Under the new tax law, electric cooperatives that receive federal, state or local government grants are at risk of losing their tax-exempt status. This undermines a successful business model that has served America’s rural communities well for decades. It doesn’t matter what the grant is for - storm recovery, broadband deployment or economic development. If grant funding causes a co-op’s non-member income to exceed 15 percent, its tax-exempt status is gone.

To the Editor:

Where you live may determine IF you live... This scary thought, becoming a familiar concern proposed to many rural EMS coverage areas, could be the future. What if there was no one available to respond to that ambulance call?

In Allamakee County there are 82 residents who are Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers registered as active with the Iowa Bureau of Emergency and Trauma Services. The population of Allamakee County, according to the 2010 census was 14,330 people. In Allamakee County, we are very proud to say we have six communities with ambulance services equipped to respond and transport; Harpers Ferry, Lansing, New Albin, Postville, Waterville and Waukon.

To the Editor:

How fortunate we are to have one of the largest city parks in Iowa - a well maintained park land for folks to camp, hike, picnic, swim, bird-and-butterfly watch, fish, walk dogs, sit to watch outdoor presentations or play frisbee in a variety of playgrounds. Something for everyone. The south section is especially appealing for hikers and bikers with its mix of prairie plantings, old trees, and stream crossings (dog walkers, please remove your canine’s droppings).

Our country has been a leader in preserving natural areas in counties, states, and throughout the nation. Many of our National Parks are being increasingly threatened with mining, logging and drilling. Do we want these places ruined for our children and grandchildren?

To the Editor:

To the person who threw that book in my van and didn’t have the guts to hand it to me personally or to sign your name, you made me laugh so hard I got the hiccups. That book, a book of fairy tales, was written years before your man jumped into the race and was written by a right wing nut case.

So, I can only presume that you are a person with questionable morals or courage that you would vote for a career sexual predator who brags about it on video. So, you are so proud of your party that you have to sneak around without showing your face, like the person with no courage who sends me nasty lies in the mail but never signs their name.

I fought in combat for this country so you could be and act the way you do, and I’m glad you weren’t in my platoon. Your book ended up in my burn barrel. If you fought for your life in combat, maybe you would have a different outlook on where you are in life and what people really think.

For your meditation: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

The theme of these readings from the word of God is forgiveness. Forgiveness from God to us. Forgiveness we extend to each other.

The Lord forgives the Israelites their terrible idolatry; and Jesus tells us that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than there is over 99 righteous people who have no need to repent.

Being in sin, being in need of forgiveness is compared to being lost. Think of the fear and tension that a man or woman experiences when they are lost in some large city, when they don’t speak the language of that country or in a wilderness where all you see are trees. That person is desperate to be found.